


all my heroes die all alone

by vapaad



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Angst, Canon Compliant, Exploring The Force: a constant theme of these fics, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Hurt/Comfort, Luke meets Ahsoka post ROTJ, POV Ahsoka Tano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27940154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vapaad/pseuds/vapaad
Summary: Ahsoka takes a few steps forward, places her hands on Luke’s shoulders. She stares at him, him with Anakin’s blonde hair and blue eyes. She feels him in the force, a brightness she hasn’t felt in over twenty years. Anakin’s sonorin which after meeting Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka proceeds to get sad, and reminisce and reflect on the memories of Anakin, Obi-Wan, and their time together.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader
Comments: 17
Kudos: 96





	all my heroes die all alone

**Author's Note:**

> title from the archer by taylor swift, based on this [amazing art](https://princepsed.tumblr.com/post/636088905114025984/i-really-would-love-to-see-this-interaction)
> 
> i've got a few more (longer) fics coming up after this so we'll see about that. Enjoy!
> 
> ALSO this fic has an accompanying poem which i spent more time thinking about than the fic itself?

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber lies cold on her hands, her tears flowing down her cheeks. She grips the saber tighter, afraid of it disappearing into thin air, as if a fictive object. Behind her, Morai perches on the branch of a tree, eyes roaming for prey. In front of her, the blonde boy breathes fog, his shivers visible. _You can take the boy out of the desert, but you can’t take the desert out of the boy._

“Did he… did they?” She stumbles on her words, as if she was a teenage Padawan during the clone wars once more. A time seemingly so long ago. _Over twenty years now_.

“Father… he was. He was good. He came back.” Luke’s voice has wisps of sadness intertwined, his grief palpable through his shining eyes and slight smile. “And Ben… he was a Jedi master until the end.” 

Ahsoka takes a few steps forward, places her hands on Luke’s shoulders. She stares at him, him with Anakin’s blonde hair and blue eyes. She feels him in the force, a brightness she hasn’t felt in over twenty years. _Anakin’s son_. Ahsoka reaches in, she hugs the shorter man, and she whispers. 

“Thank you, Luke. Thank you.” there isn’t much more she can say. She knew there was Anakin in Vader still, she knew her master would never secede fully into a sith lord. She knew Obi-Wan was alive, that he survived. She knew her grandmaster would not be at peace without his duty fulfilled. She knew, she knew in her heart. 

To have it confirmed, there is no greater gift the force could have given to Ahsoka. 

She separates from Luke, and brings the lightsaber close to her chest. The hum of the kyber is ever-present, so distinctly Obi-Wan, so familiar. If Ahsoka closes her eyes, she can imagine herself during the war, with the sabers of her masters as attuned to her own, laughing and fighting and crying beside them. _If only_.

Later on, after Ahsoka muses on the opportunity of helping found a new Jedi Order, after she bids Luke goodbye, after she is left only with Morai and the force for company, Ahsoka questions, and Ahsoka remembers. 

She wonders if they ever had a moment of happiness in the past twenty five years, wonders if they ever thought of her the same way her mind is constantly occupied by thoughts of them. Ahsoka wonders if Anakin and Obi-Wan earned their due, if they ever found themselves filled with regret and sorrow the way she was. 

Ahsoka muses on what could have been. If she had stayed, if Anakin had stayed, if Obi-Wan had stayed. She dreams of playing with a toddler Luke and his _twin_ , of summers spent with her two masters by her side and Padmé, because _of course_ it’s Padmé . It always has been. 

There is a future she vies for, a wish never to be true. There is the present she is living, full of pain and grief. Once, once there was a past. A past of sorrow, of laughter, of family. 

Perhaps they were forsaken from the start, never to dream, never to succeed. Perhaps they were doomed to fail. Obi-Wan had once told her that The Force is not cruel, that it will never be cruel. In contrast, Ahsoka knows cruelty exists in every living breath of the galaxy, such is the nature of things. But The Force is supposed to be _more_.

Ahsoka doesn’t know what else to call The Force other than cruel. Once, it had given her so much. Then, it had taken it all away. It was all taken away and it crumbled. Anakin without Obi-Wan, without Padmé , without his children, without _her_ . Obi-Wan wilting under the twin suns of Tatooine. Padmé _gone_ . In her point of view, The Force is cruel. It gives, it rewards, but it _takes_. And when it takes, it takes much more than what can be given, it takes and leaves ruins at its wake. 

The Force took even from their own son. 

Ahsoka is not a Jedi. She does not forgive as easily as the knights of the order, and so she rages. 

“ _Why?_ Was it necessary? What did it _cost_!” Morai perches on her shoulder, her guardian chirping in concern. 

In the eyes of no one but The Force, Ahsoka allows herself the benefit of vulnerability. She allows herself the time to stay a teenage Padawan. Ahsoka allows the rage, the grief, the innocence and the sense of justice.

As a Padawan, Anakin had promised to never leave her, to always protect her. As a Padawan, Ahsoka made him think he broke his promise as she went down the steps of the Jedi Temple. Years ago, Ahsoka had made him a promise to not leave him again, but she did. Ahsoka left Anakin to be alone, to be by himself. She left him to the mercy of the dark side, only to be saved by his son. 

She would like to imagine that Anakin had moments of pure happiness but she knew, even as a child, how her master’s joy was nothing but short bursts of respite, that death and sorrow follows him in both his wake and his sleep. 

Ahsoka muses at how _alone_ her master must have felt during the war, before the war, after the war. She thinks of moments where Anakin was happy, surrounded by those he loved- _are attached_ to. 

Anakin Skywalker was the best of them all. 

And Ahsoka longs for him, she longs for her brother to once more laugh with her, to scold her, to hear him bicker with droids. 

She knows Anakin had Luke, in those final moments. Luke had told her of the encounter, of Anakin’s eyes being blue, of his raspy voice, barely holding it together, calling for Luke. 

Luke tells her, tells her of the wizard of the dune sea. Of Ben Kenobi the crazed hermit. Obi-Wan who Vader cuts down, Obi-Wan whose lightsaber lies in her hands. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi, she reckons, have always and will always be a figure larger than life for most. Jedi master, high councilor, master to the chosen one, her grandmaster. She thinks of his compassion, his reserved smile directed at the clones, at her, at Anakin. 

She hopes Luke received that smile. Ahsoka would like to think that Obi-Wan held tight to his soul during his time in Tatooine. But Ahsoka knows of the bond between her masters, two halves of the same whole, souls intertwined, _brothers_ , how they would know each other blind or even in death.

She thinks of how Anakin’s broken soul broke Master Kenobi’s in return. Ahsoka hopes he wasn’t alone with no one but his ghosts in exile. She remembers the time, years ago, where she’d wish for happiness and peace and safety for him. How moments after her encounter with Vader led her to moments of gripping her past. She wished for The Force to have mercy. Mercy on them all, on Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padmé and all those whose souls were taken in the name of balance. She grieves for a future that does not exist, for a past full of so much pain yet so much you, for the present, for it to be alight with hope.

She thinks of Anakin and Obi-Wan, of their embrace and wam laughter. Ahsoka thinks of her masters, her family. She misses them, longs for the safety within them.

“I hope it was enough, Master. I hope you are happy.” 

The wind whistled, and for a moment, Ahsoka felt warmth. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me as [ah-nakin on tumblr](https://ah-nakin.tumblr.com) or my [twitter](https://twitter.com/vapaad)
> 
> do leave a kudos and a comment if you enjoyed it! I very much live off them :D
> 
> thanks for reading!


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